The Hot Chocolate Diversion
by Dollybelleol'whatserface
Summary: One-shot. Set after the events of Death in Heaven. Clara does a spot of Christmas shopping but Christmas when you're lonely is never very nice. Sometimes pretending is the only way to get through it.


**The Hot Chocolate Diversion**

**Disclaimer: **All characters are property of the BBC. This is not an advert for any shops mentioned. I could do with a biscuit now, though.

**Author's Note: **I wrote this during a cafe-break from my Christmas shopping on Monday. This is the first time I've written these characters, so I hope they're ok! A belated Happy Christmas to you all.

* * *

><p>That first sip. On the right day, at the right time it could be as warm and comforting as someone taking hold of your hand. On a bitterly cold Thursday evening; so cold that her face felt numb, Clara wrapped her hands around a cardboard cup of hot chocolate and felt momentarily blissful.<p>

"It doesn't taste like chocolate," said a male voice beside her. "It tastes of artificial sweeteners and minimal cocoa powder. This is to chocolate what chicken crisps are to a Roast Chicken dinner."

Clara shook her head at him and took a sip of her own hot chocolate. It was rich and delicious and probably full of magic calories that didn't really count at Christmas. It warmed her instantly.

They were huddled together just outside a coffee shop on a busy high street. Giant Christmas lights in the shape of stars, wreaths and candy canes stretched out all along the street twinkling blue and orange against the dark evening sky.

Despite the near-Baltic conditions, the high street was packed full of Christmas shoppers, laden with bags and impatient-looking commuters trying to fight their way through the crowds to get home.

"It's warming me up, though," she told him, giving her hot chocolate the same loving glance she normally reserved for one of her favourite books. "I'm freezing!"

The Doctor shot a mistrustful look at his own hot chocolate before his arm darted out of nowhere and settled with a flourish around Clara's shoulders. Gallantly, he attempted to rub some warmth back into her arm.

There was a flicker of concern in his pale eyes. "Any warmer?"

"Nope. Not particularly."

He frowned and his arm stilled.

"Hey," she said softly. "I never said it wasn't helping."

She rested her head against his shoulder; she could only just about reach. The heavy wool of his coat felt as rough as sandpaper against her cold cheek.

"The lights are nice," she remarked, taking another sip of hot chocolate. "Very blue."

There was an exhalation of warm breath somewhere above her that ruffled her hair.

"Clara," began the Doctor in a low voice. It was the voice he seemed to use whenever he called her perfect or impossible. The one that made her feel a bit shaky. On anyone else it would probably be called 'seductive.'

"I could take you to a planet where the snow is as deep and pure as cake frosting; where the sun sets blue and reflects off the snow like a painting. Step into my office," he whispered, nodding to where he had landed the TARDIS. "And we'll go."

His eyes danced at her as she raised her head to look at him properly and gave him one of her smiles.

"Yeah," she said, doing her best to sound as nonchalant as she could. "Sounds alright, I suppose."

The Doctor brought her hand up so that he could kiss it and flapped his free arm to the side. "This way then, m'lady…"

* * *

><p>Just one more shop, I promise," said Danny, pressing a moist kiss to her forehead and tucking her loose hair behind her ear. "I just need to get a tin of shortbread for the Head Teacher and some form of vegetables for our dinner tonight and then we are <em>done, <em>OK?"

"OK," mumbled Clara, trying and failing not to sound like one of her sulky students.

Danny bumped his hot chocolate against hers and took a large gulp. "Mmmh, liquid calories," he grinned, taking her hand. "C'mon, because Joe Knight's mum is over there and I've ignored her friend request on Facebook."

Clara looked across the street at a very pretty blonde woman in her early thirties who was just coming out of Argos, whilst trying to make it look like she was just deciding where to go next and not openly staring.

"She added you on _Facebook_?"

"Yeah, after Parent's Evening," replied Danny, sheepishly.

Clara peered up at him and then back at the glamorous woman in a designer coat and salon-fresh hair, who _definitely _didn't look old enough to have a son at Coal Hill.

"Why did you ignore it? She's divorced. You could be in with a chance there," she teased. "If you're lucky."

Danny looked embarrassed. "I've got you, Clara," he said, squeezing her hand and looking down at her with the adoration of someone from a Richard Curtis film. "I'm already the luckiest man on the planet."

He bent down, one hand still gripping Clara's, the other holding his hot chocolate and angled his head to kiss her…

* * *

><p>Clara sighed and made her way over to <em>Marks and Spencer<em>. The tall, black-figured man was stalking ahead of her, one hand shoved into his pocket, the other holding his hot chocolate as if it were a dirty nappy.

"Clara. Do you walk so slowly because you have short legs or is it because you insist on wearing outlandish clip-clops?"

He looked back over his shoulder at her, his eyebrows bristling with curiosity.

"They're not called clip-clops, Doctor," she told him in a tight voice as she caught up with him, her breath coming out in puffs in front of her in the cold air.

"But they make a clip-clop noise," he insisted. He could look petulant if he pursed his lips a little more.

"They do," Clara agreed. "But they're still not called clip-clops. Just heels."

"Stupid," he grumbled, looking down at her shoes in distaste. "Shoes that go flip-flop are called flip-flops."

Clara chuckled at him. She felt as though she had been caught out by a year seven.

The Doctor grinned at her; one of his manic, dangerous grins. "Do you know what else is stupid, Clara?" he asked her, seriously.

He looked around at the crowds of people milling around them; at the shoppers struggling with too many bags. Battered rolls of wrapping paper were poking out of the top of nearly every single one.

"Buying a present for someone you don't even like," he told her, his harsh accent and thick eyebrows making him appear much more formidable than such a sentence warranted.

"Drinking this hot _bin water_," he added, shortly gesturing with his hot chocolate so fiercely that a bit slopped out of the lid. "Hang on."

He looked around and, spotting a metal bin just to his left, he gave Clara a look of minor glee and drop-kicked his hot chocolate into it with a _thud._

"And you can _stay _there."

* * *

><p>Clara wrinkled her nose at the bin and fumbled in her coat pocket for a post-hot chocolate mint. Slipping one into her mouth, she also pulled out her shopping list, which she'd scribbled during morning break on the back of an old homework sheet.<p>

_Biscuits for the Head Teacher. Shortbread? Dinner tonight; Chicken/winter veg?_

Cheese on toast would do. She didn't have the energy to do any more shopping. She had been up at 6am for her run, worked right through her lunch break and had had school pantomime rehearsals until 5pm. She just couldn't be bothered with Christmas, tonight. Not when women were mauling each other over turkey and a _Queen Elsa_ dress. Not when it was this cold; this cold air that seemed to sit on her chest and chilled her to the bone.

_Everybody dreams, Clara_, said a gentle voice inside her head. She could remember him saying it as clearly as if he were standing right next to her, now, giving her that smile of his that said he was so, so _pleased_ with her for no apparent reason.

She allowed herself a small, sad smile. Just for a second. That's right, Doctor, she thought. Because sometimes, that's all we have.

Entirely alone, her school bag digging into her shoulder, Clara clip-clopped her way to the bus stop.


End file.
